A 3D frequency-domain electromagnetic solver employing a high order compact finite-difference scheme

Abstract

Three-dimensional (3D) electromagnetic (EM) modeling is an important tool for geophysical applications. In EM induction methods the modified Helmholtz equation is often used to describe scattered or residual electric fields in three dimensions. Throughout this paper, a high order compact finite difference scheme for the solution of that equation for vertical magnetic dipole source (VMD) is presented. The approximation of the residual electric field intensity using a fourth order compact finite difference (FD) discretizer is achieved with the solution of a block linear system, the coefficient matrices are large and sparse with a particular structure, implying the application of a matrix-free Krylov subspace method for an efficient numerical solution. The proposed solver is being examined using a number of test problems in uniform and non-uniform grid spacing where numerical and analytical solutions for the homogeneous half-space cases are being compared.